Romanian Musicology (3)
As announced in the previous Editorial, the dominant perspective on the musical text comes, this time, from Romanian performers. All around us there is much talk about “artistic research”, that kind of investigation consisting primarily of a reflection of the practitioner on the artistic act. Performers will thus look on the musical text in a different way from historiographers or analytical musicians. They will mainly aim at their own performing creation, starting from the music analysed, they will compare score editions, propose solutions to certain passages, comment on other performance versions. Finally, by various means, they will acquire strong arguments in favour of the interpretive configuration of the respective music.
On a different occasion (issue 14, 2/2013), I discussed in detail theories of musical performance, and in other issues of our journal one may find occasional score analyses by performers. In some cases I still notice their reticence to get away from the rules assimilated from courses and treatises of musical form and analysis and make a definite step towards expressing one’s own opinion. In other words, performers still maintain “musicological” touches and explore only timidly the area that should be more familiar to them: dissecting the score in order to assume one’s own vision on it.
In this issue, Andreea Butnaru starts from her experience as a professor in the field of chamber music, but also as a pianist in a duo with the cello, to suggest possible common points between the Sonatas for Cello and Piano by Bohuslav Martinů and Francis Poulenc. Another pianist, Fausta Dimulescu, comes from the field of accompaniment (which is familiar to her), to investigate the Fantasy for Piano, Op. 8 by Dinu Lipatti and its interesting similarities with the Sonata for piano in F♯ minor, Op. 24, No. 1 by George Enescu. She just proposes a thematic prolongation of the two journal issues dedicated to the centenary of the great Romanian pianist and composer in 2017. Finally, Iulia Isaev looks at the roles that define her career as a dramatic soprano, to investigate the typology of the monologue in the role of Elsa of Brabant in Lohengrin by Wagner. The air Einsam in trüben Tagen will thus be presented with all its theatrical implications: the musical drama context, the melodic type, the relationship with the text, but also with interpretive suggestions that provide technical solutions to certain vocal challenges.
To these three female voices, a fourth one is added in the section Thoughts. It belongs to Olguța Lupu, a composer and musicologist who meditates on the harmonization of opposites in Anatol Vieru’s creation. And, instead of the traditional book review, the flutist and manager Cătălin Oprițoiu proposes this time a presentation of the Bucharest Symphony Orchestra.
Valentina Sandu-Dediu
English version by Maria-Sabina Draga Alexandru